Colorado becomes first state to legalize marijuana

Your Election Day High may get one toke higher (if you’re in Colorado anyway, which I’m assuming you’re not if you’re reading this) as Colorado, news outlets around the world are reporting, have passed Amendment 64, “legalizing the recreational use and commercial sale of marijuana (up to 1 ounce) to residents over the age of 21."

Without getting in trouble with the DEA, citizens of the state will be allowed (not quite yet, but soon) to grow up to six pot plants (haha) in the comfort of their own home, and, potentially people in Oregon and Washington may be allowed to do so soon as well.

The rules in something like this are fraught with complications, and The Huffington Post explains that “it will be several months, perhaps as long as a year, before Colorado adults 21-and-over can enjoy the legal sale of marijuana”, and that the implications of this law passing is not that big weed-growing businesses will pop up, but rather, legalizing is about “tax[ing] and regulat[ing the drug in a] similar [way] to alcohol and tobacco. It gives state and local governments the ability to control and tax the sale of small amounts of marijuana.... According to the Associated Press, analysts project that that tax revenue could generate somewhere between $5 million and $22 million a year in the state. An economist whose study was funded by a pro-pot group projects as much as a $60 million boost by 2017.” Well, there you have it, a fool-proof plan to get out of the recession mess. (Not really.)